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Tuesday, November 15, 2016

White workers must speak out at Trump's divisive racial message

As some readers know, I am retired and worked for a public utility for almost 30 years. Black folks,
Portuguese, Irish and Italian Americans are just some of the people I know who
built my union, who had the courage and class consciousness to recognize that
without organization, we were easy pickings for the boss. It didn’t make racism
or sexism go away, and I know that the black workers and the women had a more
difficult time of it. Nevertheless, all of us benefited from it and it did
change consciousness to a certain extent as it is through struggle that this
change occurs.

I am proud of my union and its history. I also know that the
vast majority of white workers I worked with were not raving racist, bigoted
people. An old friend long dead who was in the Black Panther Party and the US
army assured me that it is only natural that most white folks would have
prejudicial views of black people, we live in a racist society and they’ve been
indoctrinated with it for 300 years. He said this without any sense of blame,
simply a historical fact and he also believed it was unnatural for us to be this way.

The white activists, along with black and Latino brothers
and sisters in my union local took up many issues facing the black and brown
communities, from police violence to jobs and mass incarceration.We campaigned for the release of Geronimo Pratt,
imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. We supported workers on strike from
the great battles of the 1980’s like Patco, Hormel and Eastern Airlines, to the
Apartheid struggles in South Africa and the persecution of workers and union
activists there. We were instrumental in helping save the life of Mahmoud
Masawra, Palestinian trade union leaders who led a strike of Jews and Muslims.

Like most unions not dominated by the bureaucracy, it was an activist minority, the most
conscious politically, that made this happen. But in areas where the union was
strong-----had strong representatives----class-consciousness was greater. This
was a reflection of the consciousness of the leadership or certainly important
sections of it.

So most of the membership did their own thing, they were
quiet, they got on with their daily lives, working overtime, taking care of the
kids, paying the mortgage and enjoying what leisure time they had doing what
they wanted to do.

I want to say to the white worker, not just at my former
workplace but throughout the country, you
can be silent no longer.

A
local West Virginia official in Clay County has just been suspended for posting
the following on Facebook:

"It will be
refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady in the White
House. I'm tired of seeing a Ape in heels."

The Mayor of Clay responds with: "Just made
my day Pam."

This
follows after Kentucky Republican Dan Johnson, ousted the incumbent Democrat
Linda Belcher in Bullitt County in a race for the state House of
Representatives.

Johnson had previously posted a series of racist rants on FB
Facebook depicting Barack Obama and his
wife as monkeys.

And what happened other than him being elected?

“Republican officials,
including likely new House Speaker Jeff Hoover, had called on Johnson to drop
out of the race.”,reports
Yahoo News, But Hoover declared last
week that Johnson would be 'welcome
in our caucus.'"

I don’t support the Democratic Party or it’s president. But
workers have to fight racism in all its forms, this is disgusting. It's always been there of course, it's built in to the system. But Trump has given it life.

I have written enough about the disgusting, criminal role played by the trade union hierarchy, the members of which ingratiate themselves
and beg at the feet of the degenerate Trump in the hope of getting a few crumbs
from the master’s table. We have come to expect nothing less from them.Their myopic worldview will not protect or
preserve their members’ living standards. It is a position aimed only at
keeping the revenue coming in, them in jobs and their obscene salaries and
perks intact until they die. They will do nothing until they are forced or replaced.

But the ranks of the trade union movement and white workers
throughout the nation must speak out, must stand up and condemn the degenerate
racist Donald Trump.If you don’t want
to be seen as a racist then you can’t stay silent when white racists,
especially those in powerful positions, promote their ideas, speak openly and
without fear of retribution. If you want to feel secure and safe in our
communities or working as some of us do in the black communities, then make
sure people know whose side you are actually on and that means making it clear.
If you don’t like being lumped in with Trump, Breitbart and the white
nationalists then separate yourself from them.

And that means through action over time, not words. It is
easy for those of us with white skin, the same color as the dominant ruling
class, to opt out, to keep our mouths shut, “At
least it’s not me they’re after”. It
is this racist divide that has allowed the living standards of the white
working class population to decline along with their life expectancy. Trump
will increase that tendency, not halt it.

As you go in to work today think of how your black brothers
and sisters and other people of color feel in this climate. You work alongside
these people every day, you cooperate at work, you might be in a union together
socialize once in a while although that is what is lacking because if you don’t
socialize with a people you can’t know them. How can you stay silent when the future
president of this country is talking about them the way he does and filling political
posts with neo-Nazis.

Believe me, people of color are frightened. They are
frightened for their children, themselves, their loved ones. The Nazi’s and
racists are getting bolder. Why wouldn’t they? The Commander in Chief has given
them the Green light. At very least on a moral and for some of you, a religious
level you must not stay silent.

If the white worker who has remained silent on this issue
for so long does not speak up, you are betraying your own children’s future
because they are coming after you. Racism is a divide and rule tactic that
weakens us, strengthens them. I have had a decent life in this country because
of the struggle for racial and sexual equality and what it has brought us so
far. I want future generations to have a decent life.

Those that know me know I am not a liberal. I am not ashamed
of my skin tone. I don’t feel guilty about being white or a man or my having an accent
that is popular in general, all of which are assets in the US. But I know damn well it has its advantages
in a society where the ruling class is the same color and they use that, try to
con me in to thinking I’m one of them, that we have unity. We do not.

In my work life and all the years I lived in the black
community I never met black folks who wanted me to apologize, have me beat
myself up or deny anything about myself like the white liberals do. All they
ever wanted, like us all, is to be treated equally and fairly and not be denied
such treatment on the basis of color or race; it makes people so angry when
they raise these conditions and white folks deny them. You’re calling someone a
liar when you respond to these concerns lightly or discount them altogether
There are rare exceptions, very rare, and these examples don’t attack white the
power structure, management or the rich, they simply want to be part of it. It
is white workers they attack.

So start talking up this disgusting situation in the
workplace. Let the black folks, women, people of color, know where you stand
because we do look like the ruling class, a superficial similarity really but
made in to a crucial one for divide and rule purposes. Tell them you feel for
them right now, that this must be awful for them and that they must worry about
their kids because they do. If you’ve been silent on this issue all your life
of course you might be suspect, plus, the petit bourgeois white lefty types overdo
it as a means of proving their “non-racist”
status. The liberals are often condescending and act like they feel sorry for people
and all that. The point is we should feel inspired by people’s struggles in the
face of adversity. It’s no skin off my back. Black workers see through the phony liberal solidarity. Class-consciousness
may be weak but it is exists. In the future it will emerge with a vengeance as the “Whip of the Counterrevolution” in the
form of Trump and his racist gang is felt across our backs, including the backs
of those who in desperation or foolishness voted for him. This will not always be smooth, reaction too will have it's day given the absence of leadership, but it is in times of struggle that workers tend to unite along class lines and the divisive tactics of the ruling class weaken.

If you have a local union get down there and have it make
some statement, preferably, a resolution calling on the trade union leadership
at the national level to organize a huge protest on inauguration day against
racism and to defeat Trump. At very least make your union’s voice heard in
condemnation of the direction our society is going. Talk to your relatives and
friends in unions and get them to pass them, help them pass them. Silence under
these conditions is taking a side, the wrong side.

Black workers are natural allies of white workers as are all
workers no matter what their sexual orientation. The divisiveness is not our
creation but overcoming it is our responsibility.